All Reason.com articles with the "Consumer Issues" tag.

For the first time since he announced his presidential ambitions, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is doing something I can applaud. Teaming up with fellow Republican Sen. Mike Lee (Utah), the Cruz has introduced a measure to bring down "Operation Choke Point," the Department of Justice program that pressures banks into dropping "risky" clients like porn stars and gun shops.
"Under President Obama’s reign, the DOJ has abandoned its longstanding tradition of staying out of politics and has instead become a partisan arm of the White House," Cruz said in a statement Wednesday. "The Obama administration initiated Operation Choke Point to punish law-abiding small businesses that don’t align with the president’s political leanings. The DOJ should not be abusing its power by trying to bankrupt American citizens for exercising their constitutional rights."
Cruz and Lee's bill serves as a companion to the Financial Institution Customer Protection Act (H.R. 766), which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in February. The measure would prohibit federal officials from ordering banks to terminate customer accounts without a good justification for doing so. Specifically, it states that "the appropriate Federal banking agency may not formally or informally request or order a depository institution to terminate a specific customer account or group of customer accounts or to otherwise restrict or discourage a depository institution from entering into or maintaining a banking relationship with a specific customer or group of customers unless—(A) the agency has a material reason for the request or order; and(B) that reason is not based solely on reputation risk to the depository institution."
The bill also states that federal regulators must issue an annual report to Congress providing "the aggregate number of specific customer accounts that the agency requested or ordered a depository institution to terminate during the 1-year period preceding the issuance of the report" and "the legal authority on which the agency relied in making the requests and orders described."
Operation Choke Point was initiated in 2012 and has been controversial all along. "Since the program’s inception, many gun sellers, pawn shops, and short-term lenders reported their bank accounts being shut down," The Daily Signal notes. And they weren't the only ones: many people working in adult entertainment or sex-related businesses, including porn performers and sex-toy sellers, were also affected.
The DOJ still insists that Operation Choke Point "was designed to combat fraud, not to affect the relationship between any lawful business and its bank." But even if regulators' intent was pure, in practice the program has impacted far more folks than just fraudsters. A former Choke Point chief-architect even admitted as much last week. Michael J. Bresnick, who served executive director of the Obama administration's Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force (under which Operation Choke Point was created), said the program had "unintended but collateral consequences" for consumers. Worried about targeting by Choke Point's enforcers, financial institutions have "raised their hands in frustration and simply avoided lines of business typically associated with higher risk."
frameborder="0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fcNV4PTjED8" height="340" width="560">[...]

During the height of holiday shopping season, a consumer report stoked ample ill-will toward American manufacturers after purporting to show that women's products are priced higher for completely arbitrary reasons. This so-called "pink tax," said the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA), affects almost every product marketed at American females, "from cradle to cane."
"The goal of the study was to estimate the price differences male and female shoppers face when buying the same types of items," the department states. It looked at 35 different product types, examining 794 individual items from 91 different brands.
"On average, DCA found that women’s products cost 7 percent more than similar products for men," the department concluded. The biggest price differentials were found for personal-care products (13 percent), adult clothing (8 percent), and home health care products (8 percent). The DCA refers to this impact as a "gender tax."
Though DCA acknowledges that "there may be legitimate drivers behind some portion of the price discrepancies," it still seems to consider this an unfair situation. Sure, women's products frequently contain different ingredients than do men's. But "individual consumers do not have control over the textiles or ingredients used in the products marketed to them and must make purchasing choices based only on what is available in the marketplace," the report notes.
Of course, individual consumers do have control over which products they buy, though. And while the pink razors with the butterflies on the packaging my be marketed toward women, no one's forcing us to buy those over basic blue Bics. If the products in this study really were identical save for some totally non-desired factors, it seems likely that women, or at least a larger proportion of women, would simply choose the products marketed toward men.
Since they don't, one can jump to one of two conclusions: either women are so brainwashed by marketing that they choose products against their own best interests because of it, or women find some discernible appeal in the women's products—be that different ingredients, cosmetic factors, or whatever else—that make them worth paying more for. I'm going to go with the explanation that grants women a little intelligence and agency.
Many people, however, opted for the former explanation. And while a few outlets focused on consumer choice, highlighting how women should go with men's products where they can, more went the "Ladies, prepare to be outraged" route. "That face wash you're holding in your hand is most likely a marked up version of an identical men's product" (emphasis mine) said millennial women's site Bustle. "Pretty much everything we women buy costs more than a man pays," lamented The Stir. And Femsplain described "the insidious gendered pricing" as a "cornerstone of toxic masculinity."
Think it's just women's media? "As if sexism, discrimination, and a 21 percent wage gap weren’t infuriating enough, a new study reaffirms that being a woman is just flatly more expensive," starts a story at Vocativ. "Ever heard of the 'pink tax'?" asks Upworthy. "It's real and cutting into women's finances in a big way." The New York Times editorial board even floats the idea of "legislative relief" from the "gender tax.
Alas, this sillier yet more regulation-friendly narrative has also been embraced by government officials. Because if manufacturers can use gender to turn a profit, why can't the government use feminism for its own aims and gains? "Women should not have to pay more than men for our everyday items," DCA Commissioner Julie Menin told Broadly. "Combating gender pricing is a key issue in the fight against inequality in our country." [...]

I am all alone, not in a despairing existentialist place, though sometimes I go there. No, I am all alone in the intersection of circles in a Venn diagram. The first circle represents the set of free-market philosophers and the second circle represents the set of existentialist philosophers. Free-market existentialism? The very idea, which is the subject of my new book, makes some people cringe.
A friend of mine was "horrified," as he put it, when I told him about what I had planned in connecting existentialism and capitalism. He warned me that any other self-identifying existentialist would be horrified as well. What he could not tell me was why.
By the "free market," I don't mean the crony capitalism or crapitalism one finds in the United States, but rather a libertarian economic system in which the government plays no role aside from providing rule of law and protecting property rights.
I define existentialism as a philosophy that reacts to an apparently absurd or meaningless world by urging the individual to overcome alienation, oppression, and despair through freedom and self-creation in order to become a genuine person. Existentialism is a philosophy of action, not of wallowing in despair. It is stoicism without quietism.
The main link between existentialism and libertarianism is individualism. In both systems of thought, the individual is primary and the individual is responsible. Granted, the sense of individualism characteristic of existentialism is not exactly the same as the sense of individualism characteristic of libertarianism, but they are not foreign to each other inasmuch as both strive for genuine autonomy.
Libertarians have long recognized the importance of strong property rights in securing autonomy, and existentialists have long recognized the importance of choosing meaning and subjective values for oneself in developing authenticity. One sense does not necessarily imply the other, but they do fit together well. Existentialists emphasize the importance of subjectively choosing one's values and making one's meaning, and libertarians champion the individual's prerogative to live in any way that does not cause harm to others.
Existentialism and libertarianism both value freedom and responsibility. As with individualism, the sense of freedom characteristic of existentialism is not exactly the same as the sense of freedom characteristic of libertarianism, but they are not foreign to each other. The entrepreneurs whom libertarians celebrate are risk takers and often rebels who feel a sense of exhilaration in taking chances. Existentialists, though, because of their largely negative view of capitalism, have typically ignored or dismissed such entrepreneurs as not-genuine examples of individuals exercising their freedom.
Nonetheless, the entrepreneurial spirit of working for yourself and not being beholden to others fits well with the existentialist ethic of self-reliance. There is a message of personal empowerment in existentialism and free markets, and existentialism can help us avoid the problem of consumerism.
By consumerism, I mean the addictive drive and desire for the newest and latest goods and services for the sake of deriving self-worth and for signaling one's worth to others. Existentialism calls for us to define ourselves as individuals and to resist being defined by external forces. The self-defining existentialist will find consumer culture crass without necessarily rejecting the free market that makes it possible.
One of the great concerns of the political left is that capitalism makes us into mindless drones who simply buy and consume. Of course capitalism provides circumstances that make it easier for a person to live that way, but capitalism can't make you do anything. It is possible to have capitalism without consumerism. Existentialism is actually the ideal balancing agent, the perfect accompaniment to capitalism, allowing us to reap the benefits of a free market while encouraging us to resist [...]

Once again proving itself more national busybody than necessary defender of consumer safety, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is cracking down on potentially misleading mayonnaise labeling. Specifically, the agency objects to Hampton Creek vegan mayonnaise, a condiment that mimics traditional mayonnaise without using egg yolks.
In a warning letter sent to Hampton Creek earlier this month, the FDA noted several "significant violations" of federal regulations. The first complaint is that Hampton Creek uses the term "cholesterol free" on the label of its "Just Mayo" products.
Nevermind that Just Mayo is, indeed, a cholesterol-free food. While the FDA allows foods with up to two milligrams of cholesterol per serving to bear claims that they're free of cholesterol, this statement is forbidden on products "customarily consumed" in small amounts if they a) have more than 13 grams of fat per 50 grams and b) fail to "disclose the level of total fat in a serving of the product in immediate proximity to the cholesterol claim."
The FDA also claims Hampton Creek's Just Mayo and Just Mayo Siracha are "misbranded" because they do not meet federal requirements for calling something mayonnaise. Under federal law, only foods 1) containing at least 65 percent vegetable oil, 2)vinegar and/or lemon juice, and 3) some sort of egg-yolk product may be labeled mayonnaise. It can also contain preservatives, salt, sweeteners, spices, flavoring, and monosodium glutamate, but only "provided it does not impart to the mayonnaise a color simulating the color imparted by egg yolk." Any other ingredients are forbidden.
Want to sell mayonnaise with an egg substitute, lime juice, or slightly less vegetable oil? Too bad—the FDA does not think the market can handle such ingredient chaos.
Contra the FDA rules, Hampton Creek's mayo doesn't contain egg yolks (or any other animal-based ingredients). It does, however, contain several ingredients that may up the nutrient factor compared to typical mayo, such as pea protein and beta-carotene. These ingredients are in violation of federal mayonnaise law.
Keep Food Legal director (and Reason columnist) Baylen Linnekin interviewed public health lawyer Michele Simon about the issue last November:
BL: Can an egg-less product be mayonnaise? If Just Mayo is mayonnaise, then shouldn't Miracle Whip, which has been forced to call itself "salad dressing" for generations because it didn't fit the FDA definition of mayonnaise, also have the right to use the "mayonnaise" tag? To me, this is one key narrative that's been missing in discussions of this story so far.
MS: This is tricky because I do think it’s important to have some standards for what products can be called to protect against outright fraud and adulteration. And again, that’s why intent matters. I am inclined to agree that if Just Mayo is allowed to be called "mayonnaise" under FDA law then so should Miracle Whip. But the main issue here is... an outdated definition and in the 21st century, there is really no reason mayonnaise has to include eggs.
BL: What do you think the specific guiding principle should be when it comes to labeling issues like these? I've always argued that "the federal government should '[o]pen up all food labels to any and all statements that aren't demonstrably false.'" Is that a good rule? If not, what would you suggest in its place?
MS: No it’s not, because labels can still be deceptive even when they are not false. That’s why our consumer protection laws do not allow "false or deceptive" marketing, recognizing that these can be, and often are, mutually exclusive ways to fool consumers. For example, FDA does not allow junk foods to be fortified with vitamins (i.e., the "jelly bean rule") because it would deceive the consumer into thinking the product is healthy when it isn’t. As to the mayo wars, the guiding principal to me is that intent matters. The Just Mayo product does not int[...]

If we accept the idea that social and consumer pressure is the only proper way to push ugly or distasteful objects out of the marketplace—assuming we think such a thing should happen at all—there’s no real problem with pushes for retailers to stop selling Confederate flags or Confederate flag memorabilia. There is no government censorship. There is no ban. There are business calculations. What do we lose from keeping the merchandise? What do we gain from dropping it?
Some folks may not like this equation (especially when a business decides that appealing to your particular interests isn’t financially worth it). But it’s definitely preferable to government mandates banning any business from carrying a particular product or providing a particular service.
Nevertheless, the broad nature and huge variety of consumer products can result in retailers making some really weird, apparently really stupid decisions, in the rush to deal with a controversy. And so, today, folks have discovered that mass retailers’ efforts to remove confederate flag merchandise have somehow ended up banning a bunch of strategy games with Civil War settings. Touch Arcade, a site focusing on mobile games, noted today that the Apple store has yanked a bunch of war-related games apparently because they displayed the Confederate Flag for accuracy’s sake, not because they support racism, slavery, and the Old South. Tasos Lazarides of Touch Arcade writes:
Apple's Tim Cook has recently spoke against displaying the Confederate flag, so I suppose this development was to be expected. However, censoring historical games (if that is indeed the reason why the games have been pulled) is always very tricky because those games don't glorify or promote a cause but, rather, represent historical events using the symbols and insignia of the period. However, I can also see the political and social pressure mounting at the moment, which makes pulling the games the "safest" action for Apple.
Reason reader Joe M alerted us that Civil War-themed strategy board games have also disappeared from Amazon. Two games, War Cry (by top game-maker Wizards of the Coast) and The Guns of Gettysburg (by Mercury Games), now no longer show up on searches at Amazon. I searched independently and was unable to bring up either game.
There is no rational argument that strategy war games have any sort of connection to or support the racism of the Confederacy in any way. The games just give players the chance to use their own strategic skills to play out these battles. If a player representing the Confederacy wins, that doesn’t mean he or she supports slavery, and it’s utterly ridiculous to even countenance the idea.
Because Apple and Amazon are such huge platforms for third party providers of goods and services, such rash bans could really harm companies. A mobile game developer of Ultimate General: Gettysburg announced they were going to stick to their historical accuracy, even if it means they can no longer appear in the Apple store:
We wanted our game to be the most accurate, historical, playable reference of the Battle of Gettysburg. All historical commanders, unit composition and weaponry, key geographical locations to the smallest streams or farms are recreated in our game's battlefield.
We receive a lot of letters of gratitude from American teachers who use our game in history curriculum to let kids experience one of the most important battles in American history from the Commander's perspective.
Spielberg’s "Schindler's List" did not try to amend his movie to look more comfortable. The historical "Gettysburg" movie (1993) is still on iTunes. We believe that all historical art forms: books, movies, or games such as ours, help to learn and understand history, depicting events as they were. True stories are more important to us than money.
Therefore we are not going to amend the game's content and Ultimate General: Gettysburg will no l[...]

After being contacted by CNN, Walmart, Sears and Kmart have all decided to drop all merchandise from their shops and online that bear the symbol of the confederate flag. As of Monday, CNN was able to find some items on their site:
"We never want to offend anyone with the products that we offer. We have taken steps to remove all items promoting the confederate flag from our assortment — whether in our stores or on our web site," said Walmart spokesman Brian Nick. "We have a process in place to help lead us to the right decisions when it comes to the merchandise we sell. Still, at times, items make their way into our assortment improperly — this is one of those instances."
They worked fast. As of Tuesday morning a search for "confederate flag" didn't offer anything with the familiar symbol, except for the state flag for Mississippi, which has it baked in.
Walmart and Sears are obviously empowered to decide for themselves what sort of merchandise they want to carry in their shops, and if they don't want to infuriate their customers with symbols of racism (or perhaps they are trying to draw in new customers by eliminating symbols of racism), more power to them.
But CNN takes it a little further. They contacted Amazon and eBay to see if they were going to eliminate Confederate flag merchandise from their site. They have not apparently responded. Both sites still offer Confederate flags for sale. But these are online marketplaces that really don't curate their offerings the way a "brand" like Walmart or Sears does. CNN notes that eBay has a policy against offensive items that "promote hatred or racial supremacy, including historic or current items."
If CNN had checked on the site further, maybe they would have discovered that eBay perhaps means this rule literally and does not include symbolic representations that we associate with hatred. It's easy to realize the limits rule means by typing the word "Nazi" into eBay's search engine. You'll immediately get a page full of coins of the Third Reich for collectors, most of which are emblazoned with a swastika. There are historical photos for sale of Nazis in uniform during the war. Clearly the rule doesn't mean what CNN thinks it means (or else somebody at eBay is asleep at the switch).
It's one thing to pressure a retailer to drop merchandise. It's another thing to pressure a service that connects individual buyers and sellers to each other. It changes the dynamic from "The places where I shop should maybe not be profiting off selling racist merchandise," to "People should not have or even want these things at all."
Obviously, eBay and Amazon can do whatever they please and make decisions based on pleasing customers. They don't have to permit Confederate flag merchandise to be sold through their services if doing so has the potential to harm their business model. But then there's always Craigslist! And if Cragislist won't allow it, people will find some other way to engage in trade. Confederate flag opponents must not make the mistake of confusing using their power as a consumer to pressure their favorite retailers into better behavior with trying to control trade between other people.
Judge them all you want, but attempting to stop individuals from engaging in trade over confederate symbols or memorabilia will not purge the symbols from American society. Instead it will breed resentment, backlashes, claims of censorship, and even more angry paranoia.
UPDATE: eBay has informed BuzzFeed in a statement that the will ban the sale of Confederate flags and items containing the image.
UPDATE II: Amazon has also declared they will drop Confederate flag-themed merchandise from its stores.[...]

(image) A marketing firm is tracking
mobile phone travel patterns with the use of drones in the San
Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. Is this more or less
frightening than the authorities tracking you? It depends on how
you feel about people trying to sell you things. The goal,
eventually, is for this triangulated information to be used by
advertisers to offer deals to potential customers based on
proximity. From Venture Beat:

The capture does not involve conversations or personally
identifiable information, according to director of marketing and
research Smriti Kataria. It uses signal strength, cell tower
triangulation, and other indicators to determine where the device
is, and that information is then used to map the user's travel
patterns.

"Let's say someone is walking near a coffee shop," Kataria said
by way of example.

The coffee shop may want to offer in-app ads or discount coupons
to people who often walk by but don't enter, as well as to frequent
patrons when they are elsewhere. Adnear's client would be the
coffee shop or other retailers who want to entice passersby.

Adnear apparently already gathers mobile traffic data like this
but has to use people on bikes, cars, and trains and the like.
Drones would get them better coverage. Kataria says no data about
the user is gathered (they give each phone its own code to track
it), and they don't take pictures.

Awesome or awful? I know people whine about advertising and
marketing, but I'm finding targeted advertising to be quite the
boon. I happen to be in the market for a new dining table and
chairs, and I'm not paranoid about online cookies, so my browsers
know where I've been visiting. Online targeted advertising has
improved to the point that advertisers apparently know which kinds
of chairs and tables I've been looking at, so it's serving up ads
that aren't just for chairs and tables, but for the same style and
(even colors) of chairs I had been looking at and same size and
shapes of tables. Far from being disruptive or annoying, this type
of advertising is helping me by showing me options and deals that I
wouldn't even had known existed otherwise.

So advertising based on knowledge of where you actually are
spending your time seems like it would be preferential to yet
another ad vainly trying to get you to download some money-grubbing
"freemium" mobile game. But people can get weird about targeted
advertising. It's like they don't trust their ability to say no
when an ad actually offers them something they want or need.

The Federal Aviation Administration just recently released it
first round of proposed rules for private commercial drone use.
Read about that
here.

(image) Decades before the Apple Store,
there was RadioShack. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was
where many Americans rushed to purchase their very first home
computers, the TRS-80. My family was
part of that group, and I distinctly remember being adrift in huge
crowds at a store in New Hampshire when my dad got one for us at
home. As I was about 8 years old, I recall being more excited about
all the remote-control cars they sold there and the Simon-esque
handheld games. Once I discovered the TRS-80 could also entertain,
it helped launch a lifelong love affair with all things video games. I may
frequently forget the names of co-workers and which day of the week
it is, but I can recite from memory the final riddle in an
extremely early text adventure simply called Haunted
House. It is embedded now within my DNA.

That was then; this is now. The home electronic scene has
changed dramatically since then, and RadioShack has been rendered
redundant. You can still buy all sorts of personal technology
devices there, but we live in an age of Wal-Marts and Best Buys
(and even Best Buy struggles). It’s look as though RadioShack is
about to say good-bye for good.
From BloombergBusiness:

RadioShack Corp. is preparing to shut down the
almost-century-old retail chain in a bankruptcy deal that would
sell about half its store leases to Sprint Corp. and close the
rest, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

The locations sold to Sprint would operate under the wireless
carrier’s name, meaning RadioShack would cease to exist as a
stand-alone retailer, said the people, who declined to be
identified because the talks aren’t public.

The negotiations could still break down without a deal being
reached, or the terms could change. Sprint and RadioShack also have
discussed co-branding the stores, two of the people said. It’s also
possible that another bidder could emerge that would buy RadioShack
and keep it operating, the people said.

Given that the company has lost 90 percent of its value over the
past year, it’s hard to imagine that happening. And if "Weird Al"
Yankovic couldn’t staunch the bleeding, then who could?

It will be somewhat sad to see RadioShack go, in terms of the
childhood nostalgia of Gen-Xers and some Baby Boomers (which
explains the Weird Al hail mary), but its loss is also a big
reminder of how much more accessible personal electronics have
become for all Americans. The TRS-80 launched with a home price of
$600, the equivalent of $2,300 in 2014 U.S. dollars. An American
family today could buy a modestly decent home computer,
high-definition television, current generation game console, and a
tablet, and still have money left over to pay for an Internet
service provider and a Netflix subscription.

(image) Theodore Shoebat is the answer
to the question, "Why should anybody care so much about freedom of
association, anyway?" Shoebat and his father, Walid, have a
Christian conservative site that
features stories with headlines like "The Homosexual Empire,"
"America Is Becoming an Agent of Satan (We Are Now Living in Sodom
and Gomorrah)," and "America's Most Embarrassing Muslim Spy and His
Terrorist Connections Have Been COVERED UP and are NOW
EXPOSED."

So probably not the site for me, and a lot of folks, and that's
fine. The Internet is a big and wonderful place. Shoebat recently,
though, performed an
experiment some fans of freedom of association simply ponder.
He called a bunch of gay or gay-friendly bakeries to see if they
would make a cake for him that says "Gay marriage is wrong." He has
posted videos of his conversations on YouTube and you can
watch them here.

Shoebat is kind of his own worst enemy in trying to perform this
experiment. He can't keep from referring to the homosexual agenda
"in California" and trying to argue with the folks in the other end
of the call rather than simply asking if they'd sell him the cakes
he wants. And his claim that they all rejected him isn't exactly
true. His first call is to a cookie place, not a bakery. After
arguing with the woman and saying that she'd be discriminating
against him if she refused to make his cookie, she finally says
she'll do it, though sarcastically says she'd add a big penis to
the cookie. When a baker says they won't make him the cake because
"They don't support that," he doesn't respond by saying that he's
not asking them to support his position, just make a cake. Instead
he asks them why they don't support his statement, which is missing
his own point. Shoebat needed to be making the argument that it
shouldn't matter whether they agree, because they're just providing
a service.

But while it would have been better for a more articulate person
to have performed this experiment, it's instructive nevertheless.
If bakers are a "public accommodation" as is argued, there's no
reason for them to refuse to make these cakes or cookies or what
have you. The bakeries would not be saying "Gay marriage is wrong."
They're just selling a cake to somebody who believes that. Just as
making a gay wedding cake is not an endorsement of gay marriage.
It's just fulfilling a customer's orders.

But it's wrong on both counts. Nobody should, by order of the
government, have to make Shoebat's stupid cakes. And nobody should
be forced to make gay wedding cakes either. Ethical and moral
consistency requires demanding both or neither, not one or the
other. Somehow some people see that it's
obviously wrong for anybody to be forced to make Shoebat's cakes,
but not gay wedding cakes.

(image) You can now buy digital content
for a Windows Phone with bitcoins. Nobody has or wants a Windows
Phone, apparently,
but fortunately you can also buy things from Microsoft you may
actually want with bitcoins, too.

Microsoft is now
accepting bitcoins as a payment option for “apps, games, and
other digital content from Windows, Windows Phone, Xbox Games, Xbox
Music, or Xbox Video stores.” You can’t buy physical products or
services yet, you can only use bitcoins in the United States, and
if you purchase something with bitcoins, they cannot be refunded.
But it’s a start.

Remember how earlier in the year, after prominent bitcoin
exchange Mt. Gox was hacked and collapsed and the value of bitcoins
plunged, people declared the virtual currency dead
or at least doomed? The price has continued to go down—a bitcoin is
now worth about a quarter of what it used to be at the start of the
year ($335 today as opposed to $1,100). But we’re seeing it
accepted in more and more places.

Engaget notes
that other tech consumer companies, like Dell, have embraced
bitcoins as well, but Amazon is still resistant. Be sure to check
out Reason’s December issue for a
look at the future of money.

With the roll out of Apple Pay next Monday, the checkout
experience is expected to evolve at some of the biggest retailers
and restaurants in the United States.

Apple’s mobile payment product, which works on the iPhone 6 and
iPhone 6 Plus for online and brick and mortar store purchases,
could very well be a credit card killer, according to industry
observers.

There’s no need to reach for a wallet, swipe a credit card or
wait for a cashier to make change. Even if you’re not set up on a
device equipped with Apple Pay, but others queuing in front of you
are, it’s possible the simplicity of the transaction could make
waiting in line faster for everyone.

The Home Depot says it has eliminated malware from its U.S. and
Canadian networks that affected 56 million unique payment cards
between April and September.

The Atlanta-based home improvement retailer said Thursday it has
also completed a "major" payment security project that provides
enhanced encryption of customers' payment data in the company's
U.S. stores.

(image) So, not every law California
passes is utterly
horrifying nanny state nonsense or of secret benefit to either
crony capitalist or union interests. Gov. Jerry Brown has signed
into a law a rule that prevents businesses from trying to force
consumers into contracts where they waive (usually unknowingly)
their
right to publicly criticize said business.

The origins of the law come from a
couple of outrage stories that briefly captured the nation's
attention. In one, a Utah couple was targeted by a business named
KlearGear after they ordered items from them online that never
arrived. The couple posted a negative review online. KlearGear then
threatened them with a $3,500 "fine" for violating a sales contract
that prohibited customers from "taking action that negatively
impacts KlearGear.com," even though the couple never actually got
anything from them. The company put a $3,500 complaint against the
couple through a collections agency, and they took a credit rating
hit.

In the second case, a Florida vacation rental company threatened
$10,000 fines for online reviews with "unreasonable negative
sentiment." CNN covered both tales in a story
here. The rental company changed its policy but told CNN they
had implemented it in order to protect themselves from people who
may try to extort money out of them by threatening bad
online reviews.

The new law prohibits businesses in California from attempting
to institute such fines and fines them back if they try it. So
Californians are free to give their local McDonald's just three
stars because the drive-thru cashier forgot to give them ketchup
packets. (Seriously, why are people doing online reviews of fast
food restaurants?) Of course, the law doesn't prevent the more
common terrible business responses to bad criticism, which is to
threaten people with defamation or libel suits or to abuse the
trademark and copyright sections of the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act to force Internet service providers or web hosts to
delete mean things said about them.

To celebrate gay pride month
(technically June, but stuff tends to happen all summer anyway) a
Burger King in San Francisco started selling something called a
"Proud Whopper." It was just a regular Whopper in a
rainbow-colored wrapper. There was nothing different about the
burger. Inside the wrapper, a message read "We are all the same
inside." We are all delicious hamburgers! No, we're all the same
people inside. It was kind of a weird message because most gay
folks are "the same" on the outside, too. But anyway. Burger King
produced a little video about it and it went modestly viral.
Periodically, whenever a major business takes a hankering to
marketing to the gays, there is an outrage, and not just from the
religious right. Those guys get outraged about all things gay,
lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or even just friendly smiles from
straight allies. No, sometimes outrage comes from certain folks on
the old guard left who, despite having lived through it, don't seem
to have a good understanding of where gay liberation was actually
going and are shocked that the parade didn't end with the
dismantling of the capitalist economy and full-throated embrace of
progressive politics by all gay people.
This time outrage duty fell on Julie Bindel, in The
Guardian. The headline and subhead annoy from the very start:
"The Proud Whopper? This is not the gay liberation we fought for:
The gay community has bought into marriage, babies and big business
at huge cost to its radical potential."
What radical potential is she going on about?
The gay community used to be defined by politics, but lesbians
and gay men no longer share a political base – only, in some
quarters, a social one. Rather than meeting on the picket line, we
meet on a commercialised social scene, in clubs often owned by
straight entrepreneurs, or at the annual gay and lesbian wedding
show.
Saying the gay community was "defined by politics" is a bit
vague. The gay community was defined because of politics,
as in politicians and government force denying gays their rights.
She seems to think that the only reason gay activists from the time
were considered radical is self-identification. That's nonsense.
Certainly many (even most) gay activists like Bindel saw themselves
as radical, but it ignores the fact that those with the power—the
government, the police, the politicians—cast gays as radicals and
dangerous. The government considered the gay person living quietly,
peacefully at home just as radical and dangerous (if not more so!)
than the ones organizing in community centers and marching on
police stations or government buildings.
Because Bindel sees herself as a radical and probably found
herself surrounded with similar folks during her life as an
activist, she has mistakenly come to a conclusion of what the gay
experience is or supposed to be. She seems to think that "radical"
and "gay" are supposed to be synonymous:
This deradicalised version of gay life revolves around marriage,
babies and mortgages. Many gays have kidded themselves that bigger
and richer sponsors for our Pride events and charities means
acceptance rather than acquiescence; that it is a sign we are
reaching full equality.
But how can we be liberated when there are still daily attacks
on gay people, and when the school playground remains, in many
ways, hostile to gay pupils? Just last week a YouGov poll,
commissioned by Stonewall, found that 86% of secondary school
teachers had witnessed homophobic bullying.
Holy crap, those goalposts zipped by so quickly, they left
behind a cartoon-style puff of smoke. Gay liberation was once about
being treated as equal by the government under the law and not
being beaten by police in raids, getting haul[...]

Consumers were hit hard by a range of price
increases last month, according to new data from the Bureau of
Labor Statistics (BLS). Here are some highlights from
the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which tracks the changes in costs
of household goods:
The food index rose 0.5 percent in May after increasing 0.4
percent in each of the three previous months.
The index for food at home increased 0.7 percent, its largest
increase since July 2011.
The gasoline index rose 0.7 percent.
The index for all items less food and energy increased 0.3
percent in May after increasing 0.2 percent in March and
April.
The rent index rose 0.3 percent and the index for owners'
equivalent rent increased 0.2 percent.
The medical care index increased 0.3 percent in May, as the
index for prescription drugs rose 0.7 percent.
The index for airline fares rose sharply in May; its 5.8
percent increase was the largest since July 1999.
"Economists … expected consumer prices to rise only 0.2
percent," Reuters
notes, compared to the actual 0.4 percent increase.
The Associated Press
states that the index for all items less food and energy,
also known as core inflation, made "the biggest one-month gain
since August 2011. Over the past 12 months, core prices are up 2
percent."
The price of meat, poultry, fish and eggs (a subset of the food
index) shot up by 1.4 percent in May. The Weather Channel
explains that "the price increases in meat can be directly tied
back to the cumulative impact of the drought in California and
Texas as well as the drought that hit the corn belt in 2012 and the
blizzard … that hit South Dakota in October." Likewise, a
drought in Brazil contributed to the boost in coffee prices.
Economist John Schoen
writes for NBC that this may not warrant too much concern:
Despite the attention paid to gasoline prices, for example, they
make up a relatively small portion (about 5 percent, on average) of
the typical household budget. But they have an outsized impact on
consumer spending because many people tend to tighten their budgets
when they see pump prices jump.
The reason economists and the folks at the Fed are less
interested in food and energy is that the prices of those two
commodities are usually pretty volatile—jumping up and down month
to month, much more than other goods and services. Those ups and
downs eventually wash out of the system.
The outlook on oil is not as optimistic. The BLS's energy data
do not take into account this month's instability in oil-rich Iraq.
Although gas is already at "a six-year seasonal high,"
according to Bloomberg, disruptions to Iraq's oil flow
"may boost pump prices by 10 cents a gallon at a time when they
normally drop."
And, for what it's worth, some members of Congress aren't doing
anything to reduce gas prices. Instead, Sens. Chris Murphy
(D-Conn.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) today unveiled a plan to hike
the federal gas and diesel taxes by
12 cents.
The Federal Reserve just concluded a two day meeting, during
which it dropped projected economic growth in the U.S. this year
from 3 percent to between
2.1 percent and 2.3 percent.
After the meeting, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen
said, "Recent readings on, for example, the CPI index have been
a bit on the high side," but "the recent evidence that we've seen,
abstracting from the noise, suggests that we are moving back
gradually, over time, toward our 2 percent objective."[...]